The Merman's Children (34 page)

Surprised, for never before had she shown perception so close, he let slip: “I may have to leave soon. My sister, that I've told you about, she thinks we should and I fear she's right.” Deep in his gullet: “As far as her reasoning goes; no further.”

Then Nada had recoiled from him, one hand across her open mouth to bar a shriek, the other palm thrust outward in denial. “No, no, no! Tauno, why? Please, no!”

She crumpled together and wept. Not until tonight had he seen that.

He knelt to enfold her in his arms. The slim form clung, he stroked the loose hair of a maiden, he vowed he had misspoken himself and not for anything, ever, would he be sundered from her, and all the while he knew he was being as crazy as she had been when she ended her bodily life.

VIII

O
N
the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, the daughter of Andrei and Agnete was christened by Father Tomislav in his church. The name she had chosen was Dragomir. In Denmark, that had become Dagmar, which means “day maiden.”

Tall she stood before the alter, clad in white as though for her bridal, ruddy locks braided and covered as beseems a woman in the house of God. Beside her were her father, back again from the war for this moment; his wife Jelena; Ivan Subitj and his own lady. The dark little building was full of folk from the zadruga and her kindred of Liri, as many as could pack in. At the forefront stood Luka, with a look of hopeless yearning. At the back was Tauno. Some had said it was not right to let him in, but the priest had replied that he was her brother, and in any case there was inevitably much improvisation in this rite, and besides—who knew?—the spectacle might by sudden grace unseal his breast. He kept arms folded and countenance rigid.

Costly was the incense that scented the air, a gift from the zhupan. Fervent was the special prayer which Tomislav spoke, and radiant his face when he bade everybody kneel, took the water, and signed the brow of Eyjan. “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Dagmar gasped and nearly fell. Andrei laid his arms around to steady her. Himself gazing Heavenward, he whispered, “Agnete, rejoice.”

The rest was soon done. Meanwhile she shed tears, but that was because she had no other way to utter forth her bliss. The sobbing ceased when she rose, and after exchanging embraces she walked out upright.

The weather had turned unseasonably cold. Wind drove clouds across a wan sky and soughed in leaves that were fast changing color. Shadows came and went. People who had been waiting at the door crowded around to bless Dagmar and welcome her to Christendom. They had prepared a modest meal of celebration. On the morrow the visitors must leave—she for the harbor, where
Brynhild
lay clear to sail.

Tauno, who had barely greeted his father that was, and had not knelt in church, stood aloof beneath a pine, as if to refuse a share in winter. It was a time before Dagmar could break free of her well-wishers and seek him out. None followed, as ill-omened as he seemed, roughly clad and armed with a spear.

She stopped before him and held out her hands. He made no response. Her veil and gown fluttered wildly, pressing cloth against hip and bosom. Nonetheless she was virginal. Perhaps that was because of an inner solemnity which no Faerie being could ever know.

Since he kept silence, she drew breath and spoke: “Thank you for coming. I wish I knew what else to say.”

“I had to bid my sister farewell,” he answered. “She was dear to me.”

Her lip quivered. “But I
am
your sister!”

He shook his head. “You're a stranger. Aye, we share memories, we who shared a womb. Dagmar, though, is no mermaid; she's a veritable saint.”

“No, you mustn't believe that. I'm sanctified this day, like any infant newly received into Christ's flock—yet I too will fall by the wayside over and over—but I dare hope I may repent and win forgiveness.”

“That was not Eyjan talking,” he said wryly.

Her head drooped. “Then you refuse salvation?” He stood leaned on his spear. “At least you can't stop my prayers for you, Tauno.”

At that, he grimaced. “I've no wish to cause you pain.”

“You'd gladden me if you'd fare home with me.”

“No. I've plighted a certain troth here. But won't you wait until spring? Else it could be a stormy passage.”

“We are in God's keeping. I must go to my rightful man, lest he die in his sins.”

Tauno nodded. “You are Dagmar in truth. Well, greet them from me, and may luck swim with all of you.”

He turned and strode off into the woods. When he was out of sight, he ran as if hounded.

Nada was not in the glen where she and Tauno commonly met, nor anywhere near. He strained his senses and skills that were of Faerie but could find only the dimmest spoor. Often the trail broke and he must cast widely about before he caught further traces. These showed in their far-scattering directions, and their own character, that she had been roving about distraught. The knowledge drove him frantic.

It took him a pair of days and nights to track her down. He did on the evening of the equinox. By then he was beside himself, and lurching with weariness.

Cold had deepened, gnawing inward through windless air. The sky was low and flat gray. She stood on the shore of the lake, which reached steely from a forest gone brown and yellow, a few splashes of blood-colored maple or somber evergreen, many boughs quite bereft. Her figure was tiny, lost, a wisp of pallor.

“Nada, oh, Nada,” he called, and stumbled toward her. His voice was hoarse from crying out while he searched.

“Tauno, beloved!” She sped to his arms. He folded them with vast care around her frailty. She felt almost as frozen as the day, and shuddered against him. Their tears mingled when they kissed.

“Where have you been?” he blurted. “What's the matter?”

“I was afraid——” she whispered.

He stiffened. “What of?”

“That you might not come back——”

“Darling, you knew I would——”

“——before I must go under.”

“Under?”

“I shouldn't have feared. I'm sorry. I should have trusted you. But I couldn't think very well, it's been so bleak.” She huddled still closer. “You're here.”

Terrified, he said into the thistledown locks: “What do you mean, what must you do?”

“Go under. In the lake or a stream. Didn't you know?” She pressed outward, slightly but enough for him to mark. He released her and she stepped back a pace to regard him. What blue had been in her great eyes was nearly faded away.

“In winter, the sun is not too bright on the water for me,” she told him; “but the bare woods give no shelter from it. In the depths I find shadow. Surely you've heard this.”

“Yes——” He glanced earthward. The spear he had dropped lay between them. “Yes, but——”

“Erenow I could stay later awake. This fall, we're bound straight into winter.” A dead leaf drifted from its twig to her feet.

“When must you leave?”

She hugged herself against the chill. “Soon. Today. Will you be here in spring, Tauno?”

He undid his belt. “Why, I'll be at your side.”

She shook her head. Where he was now trembling and stammering, she had gained an odd clarity (and did she look more than ever translucent, a mist-wraith?). “No, dear love. I will float among dreams. Seldom could you rouse me, never for long. And there's naught of your sea in yonder tomb-quietness. You'd go mad.”

He kept at work on his garments. “I can come ashore termly.”

“I think that would be worse for you than if you stayed up the whole dark while.”

For a span the vilja gazed steadily at the merman's child. She had grown wise, had little Nada, in this twilight of her year.

“No,” she said at last. “Abide my return. That is my wish.” After another stillness: “Nor wait in the woods. Seek out mankind …for we've no elven women in these mountains such as you've told me of…and how often I've seen your desire that I cannot ever fulfill. My dreams down below will be happier if I've known you're with someone living.”

“I don't want any.”

Horror smote her. Crouched back as if beneath a whip, she wailed, “Oh, Tauno, what have I done to you? Go while you can.
Never
come back!”

The last garment dropped from him. His very knife lay fallen across the spearshaft, and he wore nothing but the spirit bone. She shrank further away and covered her eyes. “Go, go,” she pleaded. “You are too beautiful.”

Like tall waves joining, her despair met his and he was overwhelmed. “By the nets of Ran,” he choked, “you're mine. I'll make you mine.”

He sprang forward and seized her. She wrenched her mouth from his raking kiss. “It's death for you!” she screamed.

“How better to die…and be done——?”

They struggled. Dimly he knew he was being savage to her, but the force of it possessed him. “Nada,” he heard himself rave, “yield, be kind to me, this is what I want, and you'll remember——”

She was out of his grasp, she had escaped him as might the wind. He lost footing and tumbled onto the withered turf. When he raised his head, he saw her yards off. She stood white against hueless water and sky, murkful trees, merciless cold wherein no breath showed around her. From her right hand hung the sigil.

He groped erect and staggered her way. She drifted backward. “I can easily leave you behind,” she warned. “I'd liefer not have to.”

He stopped and stood swaying, “I love you,” heaved out of him.

“I know,” she said with infinite tenderness. “And I love you.”

“I didn't mean harm. I just wanted us to be together, truly together, the one time—if else we must be sundered forever.”

“There is a third way.” Calm had come upon her; she smiled. “You've told me about this thing. I'll enter it, and you can have me with you always.”

“Nada, no!”

“Could I hope for more happiness than to lie on your heart? And maybe someday——” She broke off. “Stand where you are, Tauno,” she begged. “Let me see you while I can, and that be the wedding gift you give me.”

He could not even weep.

At first she did look at him as much as she did at the piece of a dead man's skull which she held. But slowly the bird of the Otherworld possessed her, until at last she gazed only upon it as it winged across the new moon. Tauno saw how her form of a maiden grew ever more ghostly, until he could spy the wilderness through her, until she was the faintest glimmer in gathering darkness. And then she was gone. The talisman fell to earth.

He stayed in place for the quarter of an hour before he could go pick it up, kiss it, and hang it back where it belonged.

IX

O
N
their homeward voyage, the crew of
Brynhild
marked how changed Lady Sigrid was. Had the decision of her brother Herr Carolus to stay in Croatia brought that about? Two or three sailors still believed that she slipped overboard of nights to disport herself in the waves. There was no eyewitness evidence, however, and most denied it. They bespoke her piety; now she did join the rest in prayer, where she was the most ardent person aboard, and she spent hours on her knees before the image of the Virgin at the aftercastle, often with tears streaming down her cheeks. At the same time, she was no longer curt and aloof, but quickly made herself beloved by her mild ways and her readiness to listen to the humblest among them. She became almost a mother confessor to several.

Captain Asbern had been doubtful about setting sail this late in the year. He went cautiously, as near the coasts as was prudent, running for haven at the first sign of a hard blow. Thus he did not reach Denmark until shortly before Christmas. But the passage was free of peril, with no more hardship than seamen should endure.

About midday on the feast of Adam,
Brynhild
lay alongside a Copenhagen dock. After learning whose she was, the harbormaster dispatched a boy to tell the owner.

Snowflakes drifted thinly out of a sky already dusking. The air was mild and damp. Scant traffic moved between walls and arcades, beneath overhanging galleries; yet light from windows, smoke from roofholes, savory odors, sounds of bustle and laughter and song, told how folk indoors were making ready to honor the birth of Our Lord. Those twelve days would be like a giant candle in the middle of that cavern which was winter.

Slush plopped under the hoofs of the mules which man and woman rode. Ahead of them, high-booted against muck, went a pair of armed linkbearers. The flames flared and sparked, casting short-lived stars out among the snowflakes.

“We've only time for a few more barebones words ere we reach your house,” she reminded. “The whole tale will be days in the telling.” She thought. “No, years—or a lifespan—for the understanding of it.”

“We will have that lifespan, we twain,” said Niels happily.

She clenched a hand tighter than needful around the reins. “It will not be easy. First, this same eventide—I dread——How…what…shall I tell Ingeborg? Help me think what may wound her the least.”

He flinched. “I was forgetting.”

“Blame not yourself. Joy can so easily be selfish. Once I would have forgotten.”

“Eyjan——”

“I am Dagmar.”

He crossed himself. “Could I forget your own miracle? God forgive!”

“It will not be easy for us,” she repeated. “You must needs bear with me more than most men with their wives: I who in flesh and mind am half a mermaid.”

“And the other half a saint,” Niels answered. A bit of his olden grin flashed forth.
“That
will prove hard on me.”

“No, never say such things,” Dagmar beseeched. “You'll likeliest find me stubborn, quick-tempered, no real womanly meekness in me, strive though I will for it.” She reached toward him. “But oh, Niels, never will I fail in my love for you.”